Diagnosis of Mental Illnesses by Brazilian Professionals in Public Service

INTRODUCTION:   The increase in longevity of the world population has been accompanied by a silent epidemic of dementia and Primary Health Care needs to be prepared to face this new scenario.

METHODS:   The Alzheimer Knowledge Test (to evaluate knowledge about Alzheimer’s Disease) was applied to all the doctors (n=26) and nurses (n=44) of the Family Health Strategy/Primary Health Care unit in a municipality of  São Paulo, Brazil.   The questionnaire presents 3 axes:  I – epidemiological (8 questions);  II – diagnosis (5 questions), and III – management (7 questions). Analyses were performed with descriptive statistics and the Chi-square and Exact Fisher tests considering the level of significance of 5%.

RESULTS:   Considering the 20 questions, 42.85% of doctors answered them correctly, and for nurses this value was 39.85% . As regards the axes, there were more errors related to diagnosis, with the percentages of correct answers being as follows: 42.62%, 32.4% and 50.8% for axes I, II and III respectively. There was no difference in knowledge between doctors and nurses (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Although there was no difference in knowledge between doctors and nurses, this falls short of 50% of correct answers, which suggests the need for an educational intervention in this area of knowledge and application.